My Thoughts on Hearing the Rhythm
in Langston Hughes poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I've known rivers:
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
Author Edward Hirsch wrote, “Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning
and expectation, of recurrence and difference. It is related to the pulse, the
heartbeat, and the way we breathe. It takes us into ourselves: it takes us out
of ourselves. It differentiates us, it unites us to the cosmos…It is the
emotion-the very rhythm of the emotion-that determines the texture of the
sounds.” P.21
It comes as no surprise to me that most poems are
essentially songs. Poems strike something deeper in me than merely the
intellect. Originally poets constructed poems to be sung. They appeal to the
ear. But more importantly, they are often appeal to the senses. It also comes
as no surprise to me that performance matters. The way a poem is recited, or
the way a song is sung can dramatically affect its’ meaning. The meaning can be
lost all together because of a poor performance. Although I missed last weeks’
class, I will comment on Langston Hughes poem “The Negro Speaks of ‘Rivers”
Hughes personally identifies with the rivers with his use
of the personal pronoun “I”. He further establishes an intimate relationship
with the word “known.” These rivers are as ancient as the world and have
existed long before human beings appeared, and violence entered the earth. He
begins his poem slowly but moves it along from the very beginning. In the
second line of the first stanza, he uses the first of two enjambment lines to
move the poem along into the next end-stopped line. These lines overlap each
other, and Hughes deliberate use of the words: “rivers”, “flow”, “blood”
“veins” each suggest not only movement, but a common connection. I noted that
he repeated the words “rivers” and “human” twice in the first stanza. I got the
impression that Hughes was telling his readers that due to their age, these
rivers ought to be revered and deeply respected. He then uses a white space-a type
of refrain-drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that over the years his
spirituality has grown deep like these rivers. And once again certain words
such as “grown”, and “rivers” suggest movement.
From the poem’s title, the reader may conclude that he is writing about rivers and the Negro
race in general, but as the poem continues, we quickly realize he is writing about something much
deeper. He is writing about the heart and soul of his people, and the spirituality of his ancestors. He is
pointing out that they have survived all that had been done to them. When he writes of “…bathing in
the Euphrates when dawns were young” and being “lulled by the banks of the Congo, having been
responsible for building the pyramids along the Nile, and then he moves his readers along across the
Atlantic Ocean to the shores of the Mississippi, to the emancipation of the
slaves by Abraham Lincoln.
The reader realizes that these are all allusions to slavery, and that he is speaking for all African
Americans, for Negroes themselves, and for himself. But why does he refer to the Mississippi as a
“muddy bosom” in the last stanza? Does he identify this river as a black mother sustaining her children
during this dark time; or do the words “muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset” convey an even
deeper meaning? It is my contention that this is an allusion to a deep religious conviction and the
African American spirituality continuing to shine, in a dark time because of, and in spite of the long
suffering and hardship of slavery. Hughes emphasizes this point in the very last line of his poem. “My
soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
Hughes
use of the many action words such as “bathed” “built” “looked” “heard” “seen”
and “grown” all help to move the poem along. The words and collective words
provide a keen imagery of this forced migration from Africa to the United
States.
He
uses other poetic devices such as the simile “like a river” and personification
“muddy bosom” with reference to the Mississippi river to describe his soul and
that of the African American spirituality. The river is the metaphor for the African
Americans plight of pain and suffering. It, too, has a long and twisted
history, as old and as, long as a river.
The various pauses, both stressed and
unstressed syllables give harmony to the poem. It is deeply moving. It reflects
profound hardship and the tenacity of the African American.
Although there appears to be no structure
to his poem, I believe there is, because if you look closely, you will see that
he has deliberately structured it like a river. It bends like a river, opening
and closing relatively the same at the beginning and the end, but with an
expansion in the middle. And like a river the middle is always the deepest
point. The sound of the poem is both
soft and hard. The poem is constantly moving from beginning to end, flowing
like a river, there are moments it can be calm or harsh. The author’s soul, his
remembrance, his emotions, and that of his people run deep like a river. The
rivers run far and long, and are as old as the dawn of time, just as the
African peoples. Hughes use of the refrain “My soul has grown deep like the
rivers” repeated twice, tells the reader that his soul has grown and learned
and has been enriched from the experience.
The poem can be scanned for sound
and for rhythm. It may not rhyme but it has sound and rhythm. It consists of
many end-stopped lines and only two run-on or enjambment lines. The stresses
placed over the nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the unstressed symbols over
the relative pronouns, prepositions and such give the poem its rhythm. I especially enjoyed both workshops on sound
and rhythm. It was interesting to learn the rules for scansion. The notes in
the binder are very informative and helpful.
Lynn-Marie Ramjass
October 2003
